Rugby?

I grew up in the countryside, and I mean HARDCORE countryside. It barely constitutes a village even, there is:

No pub

No shop

No people and definitely, nothing to do.

We're talking 50 people, and they're all old, or have very recently been born.

Having said that, it wasn't all bad. I was lucky enough to have a sibling to fight/play with, and what with it being the countryside there was plenty of green space for running around in and trees to climb. My brother would climb pretty much everything (he wasn't even put off after he got his collar caught on a branch and was left hanging literally, off a tree for like 5 minutes); I mainly stuck to our "official" climbing tree. We were ridiculously safety concious with this tree. Not only was there a designated entrance and exit for getting up and down, there was also a fire escape. fortunately we never had occasion to make use of the fire escape, as we weren't climbing trees during the Battle of Agincourt, and so the French weren't pelting us with burning arrows. Phew, dodged a bullet (or arrow) there.

So like I said we did a fair amount of pointless and aimless running around, as you do, and it was all pretty jolly. I'm embracing the inner amateur painter inside me at the moment (hey there!) and so have attempted to depict a pretty average sunny day in the garden at our house. As you can see, I was pretty damn happy.

This was not to last though. One, fateful afternoon, my brother suggested we try and play rugby. Now in hindsight, this was a stupid idea. I am possibly the most pathetic person in the world, and the thought of being beaten to within an inch of my life whilst my big brother wrestles a semi-deflated ancient rugby ball from me would not normally appeal. However, I was young. I had not been exposed to the game, and so with the innocence and enthusiasm of youth pulsating through my veins, I agreed.

The rules were explained to me, and I'll paraphrase, but I vaguely remember being told something along the lines of:

"I'm going to give you this ball. When I shout "Go!" you have to run towards that tree *points to a shrub somewhere in the next county* and I'm going to chase you down, push you to the ground, steal the ball and run away. You then have to try and catch me before I reach that tree *points to a tree 30 metres away*.

I agreed to all of the above, positioned myself in the direction of the shrub, and waited for the signal.

When my brother yelled GO, I duly pelted off in the right direction, confident that this was a stupid game, that I would win and we'd probably end up having a fight, and somewhere along the line I'd end up crying, but meh, what can you do?

Now there's 2 years between my bro and I, and although he was always bigger and stronger than I was I would never say that the thought of him chasing me across a deserted field would ever fill me with terror. How wrong was I.

As I was making my merry way, shrubward, I could hear the thunderous sound of him coming up behind me, and (again thank you paint) is basically what I imagined he has suddenly transformed into:

There was no doubt, I was going to die. It was like the sound of the Minotaur, hooves a pounding chasing you down to brutally trample you. All to steal some stupid ball, which wasn't even yours, and had last seen the light of day when your dad had been feeling particularly inspired by an English performance in the six nations and had gotten it out to practice his kicking but had never got around to it as Mum asked him to come and carve a chicken instead.

Not a good situation.

So, like any sensible human being who has the very embodiment of death bearing down on them, I chucked the ball away and ran off screaming in the other direction. Standard.